Nuking @main?

[Irxallis]

Yes! Let's disable @main! It can be used to make people suffer!!!

Wait... I could technically PM someone and make the person feel uncomfortable. Let's disable the possibility of PMing people! It can hurt lots of people, via harassment and bullying!

Actually... some people get a bit carried away in PVP and WoE! Let's disable PVP and WoE too!

OMG! You can lure monsters to kill other players! Let's make all monsters non-aggro!!!

Aaaand... let's ban all people who have hammers at home. Hammer can be used to KILL people in REAL LIFE O_O. That would be HORRIBLE O_O.


...

ekhm, so, for real.

@main is a tool. You can use it to hinder others or help them. I read it all the time, but I rarely talk on @main. I regularly answer @PC, guide people to some places and use it as a general tool (parties, anyone?). It is also a great place to get something done - forgers announce their presence, people ask questions and it makes the server feel ALIVE. I cannot honestly imagine the server without @main anymore...

Remember the ever-present problem "my skills window is not visible" (answer: update Sakray)? Or... "how to get to Fairyland"? Or... "what does Pandelina do"? Did an event start already? Where will it start? There are MANY small questions which can completely make a person lost. Or "where is the New World warp?" I had to ask on @main for the first time, as on forums there was no information at that time. Or my forum-fu generally sucks, which is an option ;-)

Lack of @main will hurt EVERYBODY. If you have any problem, especially on custom stuff (not necessarily quests) or event stuff and you are not in a guild or don't know a lot of people, you have a problem then.


About forums... Some might consider @main to be obsolete having forums. But most people never read forums, we here are a minority (albeit a very vocal one). Cutting off lots of people from information and making it impossible to coordinate any real-time things outside of guild chat and party chat (forums have a large delay and are not integrated with the game) I consider a wrong thing.


If anybody REALLY wants to disable @main, please propose another means of communication which allows:
1) parties to organize at least as efficient as @main is now
2) @PC at least as efficient as @main
3) forgers announcing their presence in real time at least (...)
4) player events(...)
5) short questions and answers (...)

And no, forums do NOT cut it. An IRC channel might have, but then it would require everyone interested listening to it most of the time... which is exactly what is @main. I cannot see a better technical solution, this is why I will always vote for @main to stay. If people disliking @main find a better tool, I will try it out with pleasure. Thing is, I cannot see it.

Some expected arguments:

- "But you can /exall, so your PMing analogy doesn't make sense"
Well, you can turn @main off.

- "But they can talk about me behind my back and I won't even know what they say!"
So? Ignore them. Fools are everywhere. Why should anyone believe them, anyway? If an unknown person XXX speaks bad about unknown person YYY on @main, it just shows what kind of person XXX is.

To be honest, I just cannot understand why one might want to disable @main... those few negatives are much less of a problem than all the positives you get... and if one REALLY cannot stand it, '@main off'. Problem solved.